Manzi vs Levin, Ctd

If [me and Andy] end up opposing many of the same policies, why, then, don’t I just quiet down? There are two ways to answer that.

The
first is that we all have our jobs to do. The job of a writer is to do
his best to write things that he believes to be correct. This has been
my motivation (as far as it is possible to know my own mind) in writing
what I have on the topic. One implication of trying to reason forward
from facts to conclusions in this specific case is that the current
scientific evidence about the level of climate change threat does
justify some actions: primarily, in my view, investing in
“break-glass-in-case-of-emergency” geo-engineering technologies, so
that we have options available to us in the unlikely event that climate
change turns out to be much worse than currently anticipated. Another
is that if future scientific evidence of a more severe threat from
global warming comes to light, then one should respond to that
information rationally by changing policy preferences, and not view
this as some kind of philosophical defeat.

The second answer
is the more tactical. Though this has not been my motivation, it is my
view that by attacking the scientific process, conservatives have
needlessly disadvantaged themselves in achieving their desired policy
outcomes.

First, it has prevented conservatives from rolling the ball
downhill from widely-accepted scientific findings to the policy
conclusion that the costs of emissions mitigation don’t justify the
benefits  which would put climate policy advocates in the position of
arguing that the science is wrong, or that it is suddenly changing, or
that we ought to do give up trillions of dollars for what is in effect
a massive foreign aid program, or whatever. And second, it takes away
what seems to me to be a position in reaction to proposals for new
carbon taxes or cap-and-trade that normal voters would see as natural
and believable coming from a Republican / conservative politician:
Problem exists; solution costs too much.